Post by john1010 on Jul 19, 2010 16:10:33 GMT -5
When our Republic started over 200 years ago, we were an excited, barn-storming bunch. Our Constitution was new, and we made lots of mistakes. But through sheer dedication and common sense, we grew as one nation under God.
This gave us another commodity called experience, and someone said, “Let’s write our experience down, so we don’t make so many mistakes.” So we wrote laws for everyone to live by. This took time from establishing justice, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, insuring domestic tranquility, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves an our posterity, but dedication and common sense pulled us through to a more perfect union.
It also gave us more experience, and someone said, “Let’s codify our experience into formal rules and regulations so we don’t make any mistakes.” So we did.
By then, codifying our experience into formal rules and regulations put us on a grueling commitment schedule, and reading the rules and regulations (let alone trying to understand them) took so much time from the real legislative work that something had to go.
The thing that went was common sense. With rules and regulations to guide every step, who needed it. But when common sense went, so did the dedication. This precipitated even more regulations, and all thoughts of imagination, technical excellence, personal contribution were buried in a bitter, deadly serious game of Follow the Regulations.
As the regulations burgeoned, they became even harder to follow; and by this past September so many signatures, check lists, and approval forms were required even to take out a library book that work ground to a halt. No one could move without violating some law.
Then one morning we came to work and found our entire Government had collapsed into the mountain of soil enrichment compound that you see here. Most of the federal employees went into shock, but as a chemist and former farm boy, I’m used to the fragrance, and I’ve stayed on to make do with what’s left!
This gave us another commodity called experience, and someone said, “Let’s write our experience down, so we don’t make so many mistakes.” So we wrote laws for everyone to live by. This took time from establishing justice, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, insuring domestic tranquility, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves an our posterity, but dedication and common sense pulled us through to a more perfect union.
It also gave us more experience, and someone said, “Let’s codify our experience into formal rules and regulations so we don’t make any mistakes.” So we did.
By then, codifying our experience into formal rules and regulations put us on a grueling commitment schedule, and reading the rules and regulations (let alone trying to understand them) took so much time from the real legislative work that something had to go.
The thing that went was common sense. With rules and regulations to guide every step, who needed it. But when common sense went, so did the dedication. This precipitated even more regulations, and all thoughts of imagination, technical excellence, personal contribution were buried in a bitter, deadly serious game of Follow the Regulations.
As the regulations burgeoned, they became even harder to follow; and by this past September so many signatures, check lists, and approval forms were required even to take out a library book that work ground to a halt. No one could move without violating some law.
Then one morning we came to work and found our entire Government had collapsed into the mountain of soil enrichment compound that you see here. Most of the federal employees went into shock, but as a chemist and former farm boy, I’m used to the fragrance, and I’ve stayed on to make do with what’s left!